I put that in quotes because I’m not sure this mythical newbie that an awful lot of products are aimed at actually exists - but I still like the package, and I’m sure it will benefit a whole load of people.

Refreshingly, these videos are quick and to-the-point. They each target a specific task, and show you how to accomplish it. Some are awfuly basic - but then, that’s the idea here. These are videos for the kind of task that perhaps we take for granted. Things like opening a clickbank account, setting up a PayPal button, and more.

There are however some more advanced techniques covered. Videos are there for using Camtasia, creating e-covers, and using Facebook and PayDotCom among others.

All in all, a great idea. Not a hour or two bore-a-thon, but 50 short and concise videos over two volumes.

Rating: 8 / 10

For the marketers among you, this is a great package to promote. You can get it from the Wacky Wednesday sale as I did for $14 and promote for comissions, or grab the resell rights. If you have visitors, readers, or subscribers who you could call…. “newbies” then this is a very attractive offer for them.

Super Quick Videos

Technorati Tags: affiliates, commissions, internet marketing, marketing videos

Well - yes and no. Since the advent of fast internet connections video is almost ubiquitous on the web, largely fuelled by YouTube and the like. Today you can watch video clips that are entertaining, informative, and educational. Some videos have hit millions of views, but largely these are those that have taken on a life of their own. Videos that are part of a meme that is sweeping the net, or even creating one.

But in the internet marketing world videos are mostly used to build up a buzz or to convey an emotional response. Those videos of sunny beaches and fast sport cars and big houses you see on certain business opportunity sites… they are there to sell you a dream or a perceived lifestyle.

Sometimes video can be informative. A screen capture video that is simply a recording of your desktop is ideal for tutorials, reviews, or product and site tours. And these are the easiest to create. But, yet again, they have almost reached saturation level. To create a screen capture video just grab yourself a copy of the now open source Camstudio (an older version of the retail Camtasia) - or better yet, the Internet Marketer’s version. Hit record, and start your demonstration

Another kind of video will feature a live recording. You can accomplish this easily with a webcam or digital camera or even a higher-end mobile phone. You don’t need to spend on quality video equipment. If you utilise a green-screen backdrop, you can even use fancy special effects but that is probably a step too far for the average marketer (though not impossible). The main problem here is that many people are simply not comfortable presenting in this manner.

One important point: Is a video strictly necessary? I for one find it easier to read and absorb information as text, and much quicker. A page or two of text can be read more quickly than watching a ten minute video. WIth text, you can easily scroll back and forth to find what you need, and you don’t even need to take notes as it’s already there before you.

The best kind of video, in my opinion, are those that compliment the main website or product. Screen capture videos are fine, but can be dry. Something with a quick, powerful message that gets the information across quickly is better. And it’s easy to make these too!

Here’s what you’ll need:

A free copy of Google Picasa

And that’s it! Believe it or not, Picasa has the ability to combine images, add transitions, add text and captions, add an audio track, and save the whole lot out as a video file. It will even upload it to YouTube for you.

Simply prepare your “slides” before hand using images, screenshots, or even text pages. You can use a simple free image editor such as paint.net to do this. If you want music, grab your music file or spoken track, and then let Picasa work it’s magic.

Technorati Tags: camstudio, camtasia, internet marketing, internet video, picasa, Video Marketing

Normal service will resume

Please use the comments on this post if you have advice.

1. If you hold investments, perhaps in shares and funds, you should remember these are long term investments. Don’t panic: for one, these funds are now buying shares at a lower price. The market always moves in cycles and there are not many fund managers who are making a profit in these times.

If you have your money in one of the collapsed banks I sympathise. I don’t know the US market, but in the UK your investments are guaranteed up to £35,000 per bank by the government. If you have more than this it’s advised you split them between a few institutions.

2. Your mortgage: House prices are in general falling. It depends when you bought yours and how much you paid as to how much it concerns you - prices were rising rapidly until relatively recently.. If you are looking to buy a home, perhaps it’s worth waiting longer as the downturn is expected to last a little longer. If you are looking to sell, be aware prices are unlikely to rise for at least 2 years or so according to the experts. And, of course, there are far fewer buyers who can arrange mortgages!

In the long term, house prices are always a reflection of supply vs demand, and land is a finite resource.

3. Spending power: Since this blog covers Internet Marketing, which mainly concerns selling, it’s worth noting that peoples spending power has taken a blow. This could mean a reduced income for you as people cut back, even if your primary income stream is from running advertising. However, it also means there are a lot of people out there who are looking to start earning a second income of their own… And who knows, now be the time to launch that new Surviving The Credit Crunch book

So what can we read from this?

A. Don’t Panic. Things will get better, one day, but it makes sense to ensure your savings are in the safest place. Basically this downturn won’t last. Those who claim this is the end of capitalism as we know it and the death of big banking are jumping the gun.

B. Look for opportunities! Even in a market thats in a downturn, opportunities exist. One mans crisis is anothers chance to capitalise. For example, share prices are lower so those willing to take a risk can source some real bargains, and certain credit and finance related products are in demand.

Technorati Tags: credit crunch, economics, economy

This is a massive collection of over 100 products with resale rights, all with salespages, so in effect it’s an instant repository you can use to build your own resale store, create bundles, create giveaways, create One Time Offers - or whatever you want.

The reason I like it is because instead of hitting the web to find products you can offer you’ve got it all here in one package! It’s only $27, but imagine how many packs and offers you can extract from it.

Want to create a bundle for Giveaways? Something to offer as a signup bribe for your list building efforts? Complimentary products you can use as upsells? Just grab this gigantic package

Big Birthday Blowout

Technorati Tags: internet marketing, marketing products, master resale rights, resale rights

1. Social Marketing Giveaway

This is a JV Giveaway focusing on Social Marketing related products. You’ll find a lot of products you can download, if you sign up to contributors lists. Be sure to check our Freebies Blog for more Giveaways and a free guide to using them.

2. Secrets Of Elite Marketers

Free Membership Site packed with interviews and profiles of top marketers. The idea is, see how they achieved success and take tips or emulate their tactics yourself.

3. The “Murray Secret”

This one is hard to classify, but basically it’s a combined free report, list builder, and giveaway. Signup and download contributors products but again - ensure you read our guide to giveaways so you don’t get flooded with e-mail…

4. Review Press

I like the possibilities here - this lets you turn Wordpress into a product review site! If you’ve read “The Conduit Method” you’ll understand how lucrative and traffic attracting a review site can be This is not free, but it’s only $12 - and you can get 100% Commissions.

5. Four Resale Rights

I’ve mentioned this before when I talked about Vouchers, because it includes “Voucher Machine”, but for your $9.97 you’ll also get Rolodex Poster, Copywriting Automator, and Affiliate Promo Machine. And you’ll get a salespage to sell all 4 yourself - as each comes with Master Resale Rights. A nice package to offer to your own customers - and of course some truly useful products to utilise yourself.

Technorati Tags: Freebies, giveaways, internet marketing, interviews, jv giveaways

ScreenCast-O-Matic is a free tool that allows you to do all this from your browser.

It might not be the best solution for your use, because the screencasts are hosted at the site, but for a quick review or a quick tutorial there’s nothing simpler.

As a kind-of bonus, there’s a lot of screencasts already hosted there. So search for Hosting, or Blogging, or other search terms and you’ll find plenty of tutorials to help.

If you want to make screencasts to host at your own site or even resell as part of a package you’d be better off with the free, and opensource Camstudio, or the internet marketing variant which adds features such as redirect to url here: Camstudio Internet Marketers - for $9

Technorati Tags: camstudio, internet marketing, internet marketing video, screencasts

So if I get asked “How Do I Promote My Site” again, I can just point that person right there.

Seriously, there are a lot of myths and misconceptions about driving traffic to your site. Although there are a myriad of more specific techniques, such as those that work for one specific service, or those that work for one obscure niche everything really falls into one of the categories here:

Traffic Tips

I’ve kept that page as clean and informative as possible and I’ll update as the need arises, so if you want to point your visitors somewhere for traffic tips, consider mine (hint).

I was going to make that into a blog post, but that would bring all of the rest of the blog (sidebars, etc) with it. And I really wanted it to be clean and quick loading for those that need it.

Technorati Tags: advertising, hits, internet marketing, marketing, promotion, seo, traffic tips

This is one of the best compilation packages I’ve created to date - you can download it at the link below.

There are TEN items in total, ranging from eBooks to Software that will help you sell and promote your products and sites online. Individually, these also have rights included so you can use them in your packs, sales, membership sites and offers if you so wish.

You’ll get:

Real World Traffic Strategies
Contact Automator
Unleash The Book Within
The 17 Method
PPC Affiliate Marketing
The Newbie Toolkit

…and much more!

Free Internet Marketing Products

Technorati Tags: free ebooks, free software, internet marketing, marketing downloads, marketing freebies

However I understand that many people find the subject too technical and long-term for their needs and just wish a simple way they can earn money, and soon. Perhaps with some cash behind them they can then graduate to building websites and mailing lists, creating products and services, and generally aim for the big money

These usually trade your time for money. You won’t get rich doing this, but you will earn a few bucks you can perhaps invest in your future…

Offline Marketing

Just after I completed this list I came across this program, “Easy Offline Riches”. I’ll cover it in a little more detail in the future but it looks very promising.

The idea here is you contact businesses in your area, or further afield, and offer to get them a web presence. Many companies small and large would like a website, but have no idea how to go about it. Everyone from your local florist to the big car dealer around the corner is a potential lead for you. All the marketing is covered for you, giving you cards and ads you can use locally. You don’t even need to speak to the prospect yourself if you don’t want to…

The best part is you don’t have to create the business site yourself. You outsource it through this program, and earn up to $400 per sale! Take a look at this - and I’ll tell you more once I’ve researched it fully.

1. Ebay

Nothing beats ebay for it’s simplicity and it’s massive army of eager buyers. You can build a business here, specialising in whatever you want, or you can simply sell odds and ends you have that you no longer need. It’s both a glorified garage sale and a shopping mall.

Once you’ve sold your old ornaments, tools, clothes, CD’s, furniture and vehicles you can look into buying wholesale. There are many places that will sell you both new and second hand goods by the palette or container load. If you know your market, you can make a lot of money here - and fast!

If you want to make Ebay a full-time business (many do!) try SaleHoo for information on Wholesale Suppliers and selling direct.

2. Paid Surveys

There are many companies that will pay you to take surveys. Anything up to $40 per survey! You simply register with the correct sites and complete surveys as they are sent to you.

There’s a full guide to making $10-$40 per survey right here.

3. Writing For Cash

You can earn money writing anything from reviews, to blog posts. If you own a blog you can write posts to advertise certain companies, and they will pay you for the promotion.

At various consumer sites you can submit reviews, and earn that way. Some will connect authors to publishers, and other kinds of sites will pay you per page view of your article, and accept a wide range of articles. The idea is they get traffic from your content and make their money from affiliate programs or ads.

The pay will vary, a lot, but if you enjoy writing this maybe something you can do part time at least.

You can even reach for the big money by writing, if you can write technical manuals, ghost write for others, enter writing competitions, or even get the next best-seller. Let’s face it, it’s unlikely, but there’s nothing wrong with a little ambition.

4. Helping Others

If you have a skill, you can trade that for cash. Whether it’s a technical skill or an interpersonal one you can market yourself online. Good with graphics, web design, programming, copywriting, promotion ? Or can you help people use their computers, get a web presence, or even search for information ?

If you have spare time you can even trade that. There are many busy marketers who pay for tasks such as submitting to directories, writing articles, post to blogs and forums, write transcriptions, do translations or other such tasks.

The best places to look for work are forums such as the Warrior Forum or DigitalPoint and then there are freelance sites such as eLance and Rent-A-Coder. You can even get basic work from Amazon’s Manual Turk service.

The pay won’t be great… but it IS pay. So if you’re a stay at home mom or a broke student perhaps this is one way you can earn some pocket (or beer!) money from your skills.

5. Get Paid To…

These sites usually make their money from advertising, and so pass on a little of that to their users.

Get Paid To read e-mail. Very little, perhaps $0.02 per e-mail, but like anything it can add up. It depends on the network as to how many e-mails you receive and you usually have to total a minimum before you get paid.

Get Paid To complete offers. These companies earn from their affiliate income, so you will be asked to join various sites such as gambling sites, free trials at DVD rentals, etc in exchange for a cut of that income. An offshoot of this are the companies that promise free iPods, Playstations etc for completing similar offers.

Get Paid To network. There are some social networks, notably Yuwie.com, that will pay you to make friends, create content, etc. Essentially the income stream here is again the traffic you generate from that, but it is something you could try.

6. Internet Marketing

I’ve already said this is the way to make real money. It’s not a straightforward “work for cash” as in the methods above, but it’s far better for a long term strategy.

The two important points here are (1) A website with an offer/sale of some kind, and (2) Traffic to that website. It’s setting all that up that can get people unstuck. This entire site is about that subject, so explore and enjoy

Technorati Tags: freelance, get paid surveys, get paid to write, internet marketing, make money

For example - everything from cross-selling, to mailing lists, to promotions have been used in retail stores for decades. The web simply makes everything quicker, cheaper and simpler.

Here’s another technique that has been proven to increase sales and traffic: Vouchers!

These are a special kind of promotion. They’re very familiar to the general public - a user can exchange their voucher for money off a product, or even get a bonus or free product.

In the real world you may find vouchers for, say, 2 for the price of 1 or 50c off a product. They are used by a retailer to get people into their store. They may have a time limit, for short burst of activity. The best part is they cost very little to honour since they are rarely provided at a lost. If for example an extra 100 people use the vouchers to get a dollar off something the retailers loss in potential profits on the item are more than made up by the increased sales of that item.

To put it more simply, take this example: A retailer makes $2 profit on every book sold, and he usually sells 10 of those books a day =  $20 profit. With a voucher offer, he only makes $1 profit per book, but he sells an extra 10. That means he still sells his original 10 books for $20 profit, but increases that by the extra sales to the tune of another $10. Then of course there are the supplementary sales that can be made from the increased visitors to the store.

It’s easy to  take this to the online world. You only need a space at the order form or on the main website to enter a code.

Of course, you could have a special “sales day” where the price is already discounted, but the fact a voucher is given makes the potential purchaser feel more privileged. They see the original price at the website and feel smug with the knowledge that they, and not the general website visitor, will get a special discount. It may even urge people who would not normally buy that product to purchase - especially if they are sitting on the fence.

And - as in the real world store - it will also get more visitors, i.e. more traffic, to the site. That gives you the chance to make extra sales, give you the chance to get more people onto your mailing list, and even find new fans of your site or products.

Basically, a voucher gives people a reason to visit.

You can distribute the voucher codes however you see fit. By e-mail, promoting at other sites, or by your affiliates providing the vouchers themselves.

For an easy way to implemement vouchers try “Voucher Machine”. This desktop software enables you to create voucher codes, one-off codes, expiring codes (great to imply urgency!) and more. I have found Voucher Machine available for just $9.95 as part of a four-pack of software (it comes with Affiliate Promo Machine, Rolodex Poster and Copywriting Automator) here:

Voucher Machine and more with MRR

These come with Master Resale Rights so you can re-sell the software yourself, and you can also earn 100% commissions with the affiliate program.

Technorati Tags: mrr, resale rights, Resell Rights, voucher machine

Just writing content will over time give you traffic. You can also help this process, by pinging blog directories so they know about this content. You can also write specifically with a view to getting even more traffic - such as writing for popular search-terms, courting controversy, and writing about topical news. You will also find yourself getting traffic for terms you are not even targeting.

However, other factors determine where your content will rank. The major one is “Pagerank” - which is at the heart of Google. This is a way in which it ranks websites. Every link to your site counts as a vote, and links from sites that have a high pagerank themselves will weigh more heavily in your favor.

Note that targeting popular search terms is not always the best solution. You are unlikely to rank high for the term “Credit Card” for example, because of the competition. It is far better to target a large number of less-popular search terms rather than focus on one or two of the most heavily used. So - in this example - a terms such as “Credit Card Interest Rates” or “HSBC Visa Card” would be better options. These are sometimes called “Long Tail” searches, in reference to the shape of the graph plotting these results.

To show up high in the results for “Credit Card Interest Rates” you should write posts with that term in the title, description, and content. Wordpress or your blog software will handle the rest - with the actual page address also including that term. You need to enable “Pretty Links” in Wordpress to do this, otherwise the page address will have a much less useful name such as www.yourblog.com/?p=100

So you have the content, targeting terms used by your niche - it’s time to get back to Pagerank.

As we discussed Pagerank is counted by links to your site. Therefore it makes sense to get as many links to your site as humanly possible.

Don’t overdo it. If you grow your links too quickly, Google will penalise you. This is because if it happened naturally your links would grow slowly, over time. Here’s some tips on getting linked to:

1. Interesting content will get linked by other blogs. Unfortunately, the other blogs have to be aware of this content in the first place. It’s a circle: the more popular you are, the more you will get linked. One way to kickstart the process is to actively promote your content yourself - at least when starting out. The social networks are ideal for the process.

2. Proactively get these links yourself. You can post comments on other blogs, post in forums, write in guestbooks, create content at other sites such as Squidoo and Hubpages and even build secondary blogs that are remotely hosted - at wordpress.com, blogger.com and typepad.com for example. Some blogs use a special attribute in their links called “nofollow” which means you get no pagerank credit at those sites.

3. Use “Trackbacks”. This is where you link to other blogs, and once those blogs notice you have done so your link gets shown at the original post.

4. Use Linkbait. This is a method where you deliberately write about controversial subjects in the hope that it sparks an interest at other blogs, who then link to you. Gossip and rumours work well, as does news if you are the first in your niche to post that news.

5. Use press releases. Many places monitor press releases for relevant content in their niche and then post and link to that news from their own sites. A new product release, a human-interest story, or simply “news” in the real sense of the word can become a press release. You need to write in a specific style for this.

6. Write articles. This can benefit your pagerank in a number of ways, but you should ensure your link is clickable in the article. Submit that article to the major article directories and you will get a pagerank boost from the directory itself, as well as from any other sites that go on to syndicate that article. Google will penalise duplicate content, so if you use the article at your own site consider rewording it for distribution.

7. Use Anchor Text in your links. This can greatly influence your pagerank: instead of simply linking to netpreneurnow.com for example, have the text “Internet Marketing” linking to netpreneurnow.com - so it would be Internet Marketing and not NetpreneurNow.com even though both lead to the same destination.

8. The age of a site also has weight in regards to pagerank. The older your site, the higher it is valued by Google. This also transfers to links from other sites, so links from older sites to yours are valued more. Age isn’t really something you can influence - but it is possible to buy expired domains that in effect are already aged. Whether or not they retain their pagerank after you reuse or recycle them is another matter.

9. Favour one-way incoming links - this basically means if Site A links to yours, but you don’t link back, it is worth more. The thinking behind this is that for a site to link to you the content must be useful, but if it links to you and you to them it may be a simple link trade, and therefore not as valuable.

It’s worth remembering that Pagerank is just one way to influence your search engine rankings, but it is probably the most important. And all those tips will also generate direct traffic as well from people who click your link, so you get two traffic sources for the price of one

A search engines overall goal is to provide a searcher with the content they are seeking. There’s no point trying to cheat the results, but with a little knowledge of how a search engine works you can certainly influence them. All of Googles ranking algorithms are simply an attempt to automate the process of deciding which are quality sites, and which are not. The process isn’t perfect - but it works.

Technorati Tags: google, pagerank, seo, traffic tip